SNOWY DETAILS: Is it true that no two snowflakes are alike?
Better yet, how in the world would anyone know?

Our columns about snow – not to mention being surrounded by it
this winter – prompted a reader to drop off an article from a 1990
Readers Digest about a man who spent his life photographing and
cataloging snowflakes during 46 brutal Vermont winters.

Sarah Lanier dropped off the copyrighted article by Jeff
Rennicke that had been condensed from the December 1990 issue of
Backpacker magazine.

“The Fleeting, Eternal Snowflake” is the title of the article
which detailed the work of Wilson Bentley who, as a boy, peered
through a microscope at a snowflake “and the sight set the course
for a life that would change the way we look at winter.”

We’ll tell you about this man and his work today and tomorrow
which provides some insight into our questions about the uniqueness
of each flake of snow.

Rennicke had written: “A farmer by trade, untutored in
photography or the sciences, Bentley undertook a solitary study of
snowflakes, collecting them on a blackboard and photographing them
before they could melt. Through the blizzards of 46 brutal Vermont
winters, alone in a shack, he pondered and recorded the beauty and
mysteries of snow. By 1931, the year of his death, he had snapped
at least 6,000 photographs of snowflakes.”

“Bentley’s work, chronicled in magazines and a book, spawned a
new branch of climatology. Jewelers bought his photos as patterns,
and the snowflakes school children cut out of construction paper
were patterned after his frozen shapes.

“The snowflake that so fascinated Bentley is one of nature’s
most exquisite creations. A snowflake may be a single crystal or a
group of crystals. The crystals form high in the atmosphere. Where
it is warm, a flake may melt into a raindrop; where it is cold, a
crystal’s delicate shape is preserved.

“A ‘seed’ of dust, volcanic ash or a speck of pollution forms
the core of the crystal, drawing water molecules that freeze to its
surface. On the winds it is blown through varying layers of
temperature and humidity, each shaping it differently. The flake
may repeatedly collide with others, being further sculpted. When it
finally falls to the earth, the flake wears the scars and beauties
of a short but turbulent life.”